Why do you read?

So I'm currently in the agent-querying phase with my novel. For those of you who have no clue what that means, I have three keywords: waiting, opacity, and rejection.

(For those of you who DO know what that means, you could probably add a few choice words of your own, no?)

Anyway, a big part of trying to find--and connect with--an agent that's a good fit for your work is finding one who reads like you write (which for me, at least, means finding one who reads like I read, too). 

There are agents who love "fast-paced plots that get my heart racing."

There are agents who like "unexpected twists with serious consequences."

There are agents who want "a world I want to come back to over and over."

There are agents who prefer "ideas I've never seen on the page before."

It starts to make you wonder, what draws YOU to a book? I think for me, I've whittled it down to two (main) things*:

1. Character
2. Unforgettable moments

*Besides the obvious: "good writing"--that's just a prerequisite

Every author wants to have characters "that breathe" (whatever that means), and to write scenes that are perfectly-pitched, that capture all the qualities of your characters and all the themes of your book, and are funny and tragic and poignant and true to boot. 

But not everyone READS for those. 

Do you read to know what happens to her, or to know HER?

When I think about books I loved versus books I just read, it always comes down to whether the people on the page are people I know, or at least COULD know. Could I guess what they'd order off a coffeeshop menu, or what they'd think about current politics, or whether they watch all of the sports? 

People are supposed to ask that about the characters they create, I want to know it about the ones YOU create. 

And when I describe a book, I might sum up the plot, but whether or not I LOVED it depends on your ship-in-a-bottle moments. I read plotty books, too, but I don't really care whether or not a plot is really driving the story--or whether it's even really present, particularly--if each of the moments you spread out before me individually suck me in. It's why I love Nabokov and Vonnegut and why I've never really gotten into mysteries. I don't care about whodunnit nearly as much as I care about why they'd ever want to do it in the first place.

It absolutely seeps into my writing; I'm confident that I can put together a really well-done scene (and as a writer, for me to say I'm confident I can do ANYTHING well means it must be a particularly strong suit), but plot never feels as vital to me. 

Do other people read this way (here's hoping some of the agents I'm querying do...)? I'd love to know what makes a book "can't miss" and what makes it "can't remember" for everyone else...